Mattie, left in the dark as to the truth, and every day becoming more of a young woman, who knew her place, and felt the distance between her master"s daughter, her master"s lodgers, and herself, could but draw her own conclusions, and frame a story from them.
Harriet and Sidney had quarrelled, and were keeping their quarrel a secret from the good folk at Camberwell; something had happened to cast a gloom on the way that Mattie thought would be ever bright and rosy, and each day they who should have been lovers seemed drifting further apart. She would have liked to play the part of mediator between them--to see them friends again--but her position held her back, and she had not the courage of a year ago. Those two young lovers had been the bright figures in her past--her life had somehow become blended with them, and she felt that her interest was of a c.u.mulative character, and not likely to die out with her riper womanhood. She could not disa.s.sociate her mind away from them; at every turn in her career they were before her--they haunted her thoughts, and hara.s.sed her with their seeming inconsistencies of conduct. She did not understand them, for the clue to the inner life was absent from her; she could not see why Harriet was not a girl to love this young man with all her heart, as she was loved--she felt that there was an a.s.similation between the strength of one, and the weakness that needed support in the other; and that Sidney"s earnest love should have more deeply impressed a heart naturally susceptible to anything that was honest and true.
And yet Harriet grew paler, and looked disturbed in mind, and Sidney Hinchford came home from business every day with a deeper shade of thought upon his face. He went less often to Camberwell also--she took notice of that--and stayed up late at night in the drawing-room, after having deluded his father into the belief that he should be only a few moments after him. All was mystery in Suffolk Street, denser than the fogs which crept thither so often in the winter time.
Mr. Wesden, before retiring from business, had left strict orders with Mattie to be the last to go round the house, and see, in particular, to the gas burners, and the bolts which Ann Packet was continually leaving unfastened, and had once received warning for in Mr. Wesden"s time.
Mattie had injunctions to see to the drawing-room burners as well; to wait to an hour however late for the Hinchford exit.
This waiting up became a serious matter when Sidney Hinchford remained in the drawing-room till the small hours of the morning, and brooded over his papers, with which one table or another was invariably strewn.
Mattie, a young woman of business, who did a fair day"s work, and rose early, ventured to remonstrate at last; it was intrenching beyond her province, but she made the plunge in a manner very nervous and new to her--in a manner that even confused herself a little.
He brought the remonstrance upon himself by coming down into the shop to hunt for some writing paper, which he intended to pay for in the morning, and was a little surprised to find Mattie sewing briskly in the back parlour.
"Up still, Mattie!--late hours for you," he said.
"Ah! and for you, too, sir."
"Men can do with little rest, and I never leave one day"s work for the next," said he, in that quick manner which had become habitual to him, and which appeared, to strangers, tinged with more abruptness than was really intended. "I was thinking of robbing your stationery drawer, Mattie, and lo the thief is detected in the act."
"Oh! I hope you do not intend any more work to-night, sir."
"Why not?" he asked, his eyes expressing a mild sort of surprise through his spectacles.
"I"m waiting to see the gas out in that table-lamp."
"Can"t I see to it myself?"
"I thought so until I found the tap in the india-rubber pipe turned full on last night."
"Did you sit up last night, too?"
"Mr. Wesden has always wished that I should make sure everything was safe."
"But I"m busy just now; you mustn"t be a slave as well as myself."
"I hope you"re not a slave, Mr. Sidney," said Mattie, a.s.suming that half-familiar style of conversation which was natural to her with her two old friends, and which always escaped in spite of of her, "or that you will not keep one much longer, for it"s not improving your looks, I can tell you."
"_You_ can tell me," said Sidney; "well, what"s the matter with my looks, Mattie?"
Mattie looked steadily at him.
"You"re paler than you used to be," she said after a while; "you"re not like yourself; you"ve something on your mind."
Sidney frowned, rubbed his hair up the wrong way, after his father"s fashion, cleared off suddenly and then laughed.
"Who hasn"t?" was his reply.
"There"s nothing which can"t easily be got over, or my name isn"t Mattie," said our heroine, with great firmness.
She was full of her one reason for all this thought on his side, and the confusion and perplexity on Harriet"s, and she delivered her hint emphatically.
"I don"t despair of getting over most things," he said, with a forced lightness that did not deceive his observer; "there"s only one thing in the way that bothers me."
He said it more to himself than Mattie, who cried, instinctively--
"What"s that, sir?"
"Why, that"s my secret," he responded, shutting up on the instant; "and I shall keep it till the last."
He had turned very stern and rigid; Mattie felt that she had crossed the line of demarcation, and withdrew into herself and her needlework with a sigh.
Sidney Hinchford shook himself away from that dark thought instanter.
"You"re as curious as ever, Mattie--you"ll be a true woman. I would not be your husband for the world."
Mattie felt herself crimson on the instant, and a strange wild commotion in her heart ensued, more unaccountable than the mystery which had deepened around her. They were light, idle words of his, but they made her cheeks flush and her bosom heave; he spoke in jest, almost in sarcasm, but the words rang in her ears as though he had thundered them forth with all the power of his lungs.
When all this Suffolk Street life was over; when she and he, when she and they whom she loved had gone their separate ways, when she was an old woman, she remembered Sidney Hinchford"s words.
Still she flashed back the jesting reply--or whatever it was--with a quickness that was startling.
"You"ll wait till you"re asked," she said.
At this moment some one knocked at the outer-door.
"Hollo!--a late customer like me," said Sidney, opening the door as he was nearer to it, and then staring with surprise at the person who had arrived--no less a person than Mr. Wesden himself.
"Hollo!" he said again; "nothing wrong, sir, I hope?"
"Not at home," was the dry response. "Is anything wrong here?"
"Oh! no."
He entered, took the door-handle from Sidney, and closed the door himself, turned the key in the lock, and drew the bolts to. Sidney Hinchford thought Mr. Wesden looked very nervous that evening--very different from his usual stolid way.
"You"re quite sure--quite sure that it"s all right, sir?" asked Sidney, his thoughts flashing to Harriet again.
"I said so; I never tell an untruth, Sidney. Good night"
"Good night, sir. Oh!" turning back, "the letter-paper, Mattie--I had forgotten."
Mr. Wesden watched the transfer of the writing paper from the drawer to Sidney Hinchford"s hands, glanced furtively from Sidney to Mattie, gradually unwinding a woolen comforter from his neck meanwhile.
When Sidney had withdrawn, very much perplexed, but too dignified to ask any more questions, Mr. Wesden turned to Mattie.
"What"s he doing down here at this time of night, Mattie?"
"He came for writing paper--he"s very busy."